Bliss (10 page)

She had married while still in college and discovered too late that what her husband had wanted, was someone to sleep with, to do his laundry, keep house, and help pay his way through law school. Once he finished, he had no intention of continuing their marriage. There had been no battle scenes, no acrimony, he had simply come home, packed his things, and left on a flight that evening to San Francisco to start work, having signed on with a large law firm. Katherine had not gone into a tailspin. Suddenly, and with brutalizing clarity, she knew exactly what the world was all about and how it operated. The most significant thing Katherine learned from her marriage was that she would have to make her own decisions, decisions she could live with. She had made the mistake of moving her life according to the wishes of another, and she’d never do it again.

Now, she had risen quickly to the top a new company, but once again, found her life revolving around some else’s wishes.

Stephen Vetter had become Katherine’s lover almost immediately after they met. But for the last two months his near-obsession with Bliss and the secrecy surrounding it, had effectively closed Katherine out of his life. Now it had reached the boiling point. His continuing failure to level with her, but at the same time, continue to use her, had pushed Katherine to the breaking point.

It had not been an easy decision to reach, but she would not have her life ruled by corporate lies and secrets. Especially when other people’s lives were involved. She had agreed to something in pursuit of upward mobility. Katherine now regretted that decision. She would tell him tonight it was over between them. From now on it was business only.

No more company secrets. From anyone. If he was going to run a drug company, and she was going to help, he’d have to do things by the book.
No more deception.

She selected a gray cotton skirt, light-blue silk blouse, and a simple string of pearls. She ran a brush through her thick raven hair, and pushed her feet into a pair of toeless heels. Katherine Blair looked back out the window at the threatening bad weather and wondered if she would be able to tell him. He was like a magnet with her. Sometimes she felt as if he controlled her.
Maybe he did?

“Teresa. Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Lindsey. I just wondered if you knew what happened next door?”

Lindsey looked at Teresa Hagen and was too dumfounded to speak at first. The girl looked like a corpse. She had lost even more weight, despite the fact that she was pregnant, and her skin was as pale and dry as parchment. Her eyes had sunk deep in their sockets as if she hadn’t slept in a month.

“Teresa, not to change the subject, but... are you feeling okay?”

Hagen pushed a few unhealthy strands of hair out of her face. “A little tired. This pregnancy has been rough on me.”

That’s the understatement of the century,
Lindsey thought.

“Have you been eating?” Lindsey asked.

“When I can.”

“You mean, when you feel like it?”

“Yes.”

Lindsey realized Teresa was still standing in the entry and she opened the door, wider. “Please come in.”

“So what happened next door?” Teresa asked. “Why were all the police cars there?”

Lindsey didn’t know whether to tell her what she had seen or not. She still couldn’t believe it herself.

“There was an accident of some kind,” Lindsey said, “I’m not sure.”

“I hope you don’t mind me coming over like this, Lindsey. Jack is working nights now and everyone else seems to close their house up in the evening. Sometimes I feel totally isolated here.”

Lindsey gave an uneasy smile. “I know what you mean.”

Teresa sat on the end of the sofa and Lindsey noticed she hardly showed at all for being six-months pregnant. “So when are you due?” Lindsey asked.

Teresa’s eyes hardened. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“What way?”

Teresa stood up, rigid. “You know what way. That accusing way.”

“Teresa, I’m not accusing you of anything.”

There was a long silence. For a moment, Lindsey didn’t react. Teresa’s actions stunned her.

“I’m sorry I’m such a jerk,” Teresa finally said. “I’ve just been really stressed out lately.”

Lindsey took a step back. “I think it’s more than just stress. Listen, I know we’ve only known each other from work, mainly, and from the few times we’ve talked here in the development. But I can see a drastic change in you. I can’t believe no one else has said anything. What about your obstetrician? Your husband?”

Teresa slammed her hand down on the table. “Mind your own fucking business! What is your fucking problem?”

Now, whatever softness was left in Teresa Hagen’s features vanished. Her mouth was a grim line and a small drop of spittle had collected at the corners. Her chin protruded more, and her eyes turned to dark slits.

Lindsey stepped toward the door. “I think you should leave now, Teresa.”

Without warning, Teresa Hagen lunged. Lindsey tried to sidestep her, but Hagen slammed her to the floor and began to strangle her. Lindsey tried to bite her, but she kept her hands firmly in place. She tried to kick her legs, but now Hagen was sitting on them. Lindsey could feel the world getting cloudy.

Then suddenly, Teresa Hagen let out a loud howl like a wounded dog in the throes of death. A torrent of bright red blood gushed forth from her mouth past Lindsey’s head. Lindsey wrenched the woman off of her, the grip on her neck now just a pair of cold hands. She climbed to her knees and watched as Hagen convulsed into a terminal dance on the living room floor. Finally, Teresa Hagen let out one last guttural sound and collapsed in a heap.

Lindsey turned and staggered out the door.

Stephen Vetter sat alone in
the plush surroundings of his office. He had watched the whole thing unfold on the videotape. Although Booth’s meltdown did not surprise him, the level of the man’s violence came as a shock.

Now he needed time to gather his thoughts.

Vetter tapped his desk with a pencil and pulled his computer keyboard closer. With a series of practiced keystrokes he launched his surveillance protocol and switched on the camera in Lindsey Walsh’s living room.

Suddenly, the image on Vetter’s screen blinked twice and took shape. The picture came into focus, and Teresa Hagen lay sprawled across the floor in the living room. Vetter realized he had come out of his seat.

What the fuck?

He scanned the room, but Walsh was nowhere to be found. He wondered if Booth had killed Hagen before he did himself and his wife. Maybe he did Lindsey Walsh as well? Where was the body?

Vetter panned the house carefully, but found nothing else out of place. It suddenly became apparent to him he needed to get Teresa Hagen’s body out of there. And find Walsh. The police would have questions about the Booths. Hagen’s husband would probably look for her.

Vetter glanced at a report Frederick Meyer had given him shortly before his death. It listed a myriad of side effects linked to Bliss. Meyer was a brilliant scientist, but didn’t understand business. Vetter missed him sometimes, especially the times when Meyer’s conscience would get the better of him and he would berate Vetter before finally acquiescing. Vetter knew Meyer was also receiving pressure from the FDA for more comprehensive trial reports. The poor guy had been caught between two vipers. It was a shame he had died at such a crucial moment. It appeared now that he’d been
right
about side effects. But Vetter already knew that. Though he had to admit, seeing them first hand was unnerving, even for someone like Vetter. He would have to adjust the dosage to buy more time.

The bigger problem right now was Lindsey Walsh, and what she knew or didn’t know. He had followed her to Frederick Meyer’s house earlier that day and knew she could only be there for one reason. And she left with a camera in her hand. Frederick Meyer’s camera. He thought that was long gone along with Meyer. Now it could come back to haunt him. Vetter cursed himself for not dealing with Lindsey Walsh as soon as his security people confirmed his suspicions about her. She was asking questions ever since they removed Collett, and security saw her poking around in some unauthorized areas. Things that had nothing to do with her job.

Vetter’s mind churned.
And where the fuck was Katherine?
She was supposed to meet him earlier, but called to say she couldn’t make it because of an impending storm. After it had abated, he’d called her and got the same mundane message as always: “I’m not available, please leave a message.”

Bullshit!
This is me,
he thought as he turned back toward the video screen.

Vetter had noticed Katherine growing increasingly distant in the last few weeks. Although he took some of the blame, she definitely had changed. A renewed confidence that made him feel threatened.
And that, he didn’t like.
If it wasn’t for her brilliance in the pharmaceutical realm, he may well have already disposed of her as he had so many others over the years. Lacking a conscience had its advantages. But for now, he needed her, because she could make or break him. And although that leverage bothered him, in light of recent events at Indian Springs, he had no choice but to play along. Besides he was feeling amorous tonight. Maybe he’d pay her a visit later.

He rewound the videotape from the previous twelve hours. Knowing Walsh was gone during the day, he fast-forwarded to the evening. After what appeared to be a normal evening, Vetter watched as she left her house, returned a few minutes later, and then answered the door. Vetter sat forward in his seat and continued to watch as an increasingly agitated Teresa Hagen, attacked Walsh, and after a brief struggle, collapsed on the floor. The last image on the screen showed Lindsey Walsh running out of her door.

And now to make matters worse,
she knew about Teresa Hagen.
She needed to be found.

Vetter picked up the phone and pushed the auto-dialer to a private number in Phoenix.

Frank Deldeo’s residence.

Hans Grovel lit his fourth
cigar and paced his office like a caged animal. He snatched up his phone and called the computer room.

“Any word on that email yet?” he demanded before the clerk could even speak.

“Nothing yet, sir. It’s taking a bit longer than expected–it came from a cellular phone.”

A cellular, Grovel mused. Figures.
Americans and their electronic gadgets.

“The tower that sent it is in the Washington, D.C. area.”

Grovel arched his brow. “D.C., huh? Call me as soon as you have the email address.”

The night sky was as
dark as funeral granite and seemed to hang inches from the highway. Lindsey had the wipers going full blast, but torrents of rain overwhelmed them as if she was in the rinse cycle of a carwash.

She would never find Katherine Blair’s house in this storm. She wasn’t even sure of the address. She only had a local map and Katherine’s mention of it several times, to go on. Lindsey didn’t care right now. She had to get out of Indian Springs. Tonight, her dream home in the gated community had become a
House of Horrors.

Lindsey drove down the barely perceptible Interstate on a steadily narrowing portion of roadway. She searched the deepening blackness for an exit where she could batten down and wait out the storm. It seemed every mile decreasing visibility hampered her. The clouds were so thick, so black, that it could have been ten fathoms under the sea. Although the headlights were on bright, clear glimpses of the road remained brief. Brilliant links of chain lightning rattled down from the heavens in a blinding pyrotechnic display. Other vehicles seemed to glide like apparitions across the storm-washed freeway. Lindsey squinted through rain and shadow, trying to discern the road signs. The details remained obscure. Goose flesh formed on her arms and along the nape of her neck.

The past few days, her life had become surreal. Her dream job had turned into a nightmare before she’d even realized what had happened. Her relationship with Jason was now tenuous, and an assassin who killed her father was after her. And then there was the gated community of Indian Springs. It was all too convenient. Vetter had put her and everyone else there for his own devices. What those devices were, no one knew except Vetter himself, and perhaps, Katherine Blair.

Hunched over the wheel, Lindsey angled to the midpoint of the ever-narrower strip of roadway and continued to drive. She spotted a glimpse of an exit sign, and slowed. It seemed to hang in midair above the roadway. Lindsey’s heart thudded painfully against her chest. She eased off the accelerator and headed toward the exit. She balanced herself between caution and dread.

With a jolt, the Volvo dropped precipitously, and the front tipped forward. In her panic, she swung too far to the right, braking at the brink of the shoulder, which had eroded from the storm. Now she hung precariously on the edge. From the light of the exit sign she could see a torrent of water rushing alongside the shoulder.

A flash flood!

She shifted into reverse and eased down on the accelerator. The car moved backward on the disintegrating roadway. Another slab of shoulder gave way. The Volvo tipped farther forward and water surged across the hood, almost to the windshield.

Lindsey abandoned caution and accelerated hard. The car jumped backward out of the ditch and the tires ground through the soft shoulder. It was too unstable to hold. The churning wheels turned the ground to quicksand. With the engine screaming and tires smoking, the Volvo slid into the flood as easily as soapsuds being sucked down a drain.

“God dammit.” Lindsey waited for the water to fill the car, but the Volvo stayed above the surface and floated canoe-like, picking up speed as it pitched and yawned. The engine had gone dead and it was eerily quiet inside except for the gurgling sound of the water against the body of the car.

As she plunged downstream, Lindsey turned in her seat and unfastened her seat belt. Turning back around, she realized her feet were in a half foot of water. Where was it coming in?