Double Blind (13 page)

“I guess you don’t like to lose?” Burt said.

“You know what they say,” Sam said. “In boxing, second place is last place.”

“I’m impressed,” Burt said. “Remind me to never make you mad.”

“She was on TV Friday night,” Alyss said. “HBO. Caesar’s Palace. The whole deal.”

“Well, that deserves a toast.” Burt walked to the kitchen door, peeked inside, said something to Carmelita, and returned to his seat. Carmelita appeared with four small crystal glasses, whose pattern matched that of the larger ones, and an ornate decanter of Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac.

Carmelita poured the golden liquid into three of them, and then eyed Alyss with a raised eyebrow.

Alyss smiled. “Shelby can have a little. After all, she’s seventeen.”

Shelby beamed at her mother.

Carmelita poured a little for Shelby.

Burt raised his glass. “To Sam. The undefeated pugilist.”

They all nodded toward Sam and took a sip.

Shelby coughed, and then exhaled through pursed lips. “Wow. That’s strong.”

Burt laughed. “It gets better. The first taste is always a jolt.”

They sat quietly, savoring the cognac.

“You were going to tell us about your lab,” Sam said.

Burt leaned back in his chair. “Hollis and I owned a pharmaceutical company in Houston. We sold it a few years back.”

“Why?” Sam asked. “Seems like that’s a good business to be in now.”

Burt swirled the cognac in his glass. “It got too big. Too complicated. I like number two yellow pencils, not computers.”

Sam laughed. “I agree with that.”

“When Hollis and I started the company, we had pencils and a ledger book. I could thumb through the pages and tell you exactly how we were doing. I had a feel for the columns of numbers.” He swept his hair back from his forehead. “Then, we outgrew our britches. Computers came in, ledgers disappeared. Everything was hidden in a silicon chip. And even if one of our computer jockeys pulled out what I wanted, it looked funny. Like the numbers were artificial. I felt like a blind man in a dark room.”

“That’s the price of success, I guess,” Sam said.

“That’s when Hollis and I decided to sell out. Then, we came up with the idea of setting up our own lab. Turn back the clock. Do things the old-fashioned way. Here. Away from the bureaucrats. Away from the FDA clowns.”

“FDA? I thought they had to approve everything anyway?” Alyss said.

“Eventually. But, unless you’re doing human or animal research, you won’t likely make a blip on their radar screen.”

“Especially here,” Sam said.

“Exactly.”

“How did you get involved in pharmaceuticals anyway?” Sam asked.

“My degree is in chemical engineering, but I gravitated toward the biomedical and pharmaceutical side. Hollis is a business whiz. It was a good combination.”

“What kinds of things were you doing?” Alyss asked.

He flexed his hands again. “Our main focus was developing new and better arthritis drugs. Everything on the market had too many side effects.”

“Any progress?”

“Some,” Burt nodded. “Not enough to help my joints though.” He spread his fingers, and then flexed them.

Alyss reached out and took his hand. “They seem fine to me.”

He smiled and cradled her hand in his. “They look better than they feel.”

Sam winked at Alyss and got a mock scowl in return.

“How can you develop an arthritis drug without testing it on animals or humans?” Sam asked.

Burt let go of Alyss’ hand, drained his cognac, and then refilled his and Alyss’ glasses. He held the bottle toward Sam but she waved it away. Shelby shook her head.

“The lab here was a chemistry lab,” he said. “Our efforts were directed toward tweaking already available drugs to make them more effective or to reduce side effects.”

“Tweaking?” Sam said.

Burt laughed. “That’s a scientific term. Drugs are just chemical compounds. Each compound’s action in the body is dictated by its structure. If you alter the structure, you alter the effect.”

“How do you do that?” Alyss said.

“That’s where chemistry comes in.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “If you add a couple of atoms here and there, or take a few away, or move them around in certain ways, you change the compound completely. Structurally, the difference between cyanide gas and water isn’t much. One is hydrogen and cyanide and the other is hydrogen and oxygen. But, the difference in their action is literally life and death.”

Sam nodded. “I see. If you take an existing drug and move its atoms around or add some others to it, you get a drug with different effects.”

“Exactly. Maybe more effective. Maybe less side effects.”

“Fascinating,” Alyss said. “And if you make a new drug, what happens then?

“Had we developed anything promising, we would have sold it to one of the large companies for testing. That’s when the animal and human experiments would come in.”

“I’m impressed,” Alyss said. “Did you get any new drugs tweaked?”

Burt laughed. “Unfortunately, no. Close.”

“But, Dr. Locke had a stroke,” Sam said.

“Right.”

“Why not hire someone else?” Alyss said.

“It’s not that easy.” Burt leaned back in his chair again and turned toward Alyss. “Qualified researchers are hard to come by. They work in universities, for the government, or big companies. Not in small backwoods setups like we had.”

“You found Dr. Locke.”

“Lucky break. He was 70 and retiring. And he wanted to live here.”

“What are you going to do with your lab now?” Sam asked.

Burt shrugged. “I guess it’ll keep collecting dust like it has for the past year and a half.”

Alyss glanced at her watch. “We’d better get going. I have guests.”

Sam drained her glass and stood. “Burt, it’s been a pleasure.”

“Come back anytime,” he said. “In fact, I’m having a barbecue on Wednesday. My son Conner will be here. He just finished his first year at Princeton. And Hollis and his daughter Kelly will be here. Please come.”

Alyss nodded. “We’d love to.”

Burt walked them to their car, his hand resting on Alyss’ shoulder. “See you Wednesday,” he said to Alyss as he held the door for her.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Alyss said.

Sam waved, got in, and cranked her Jeep to life. As she wound down the driveway, she winked at Shelby in the rear view mirror. “Alyss has a boyfriend. Alyss has a boyfriend,” she chanted.

Shelby howled with laughter and joined Sam’s chant. ” Mom’s got a boyfriend.”

Alyss flashed a scowl over her shoulder at Shelby. “Ok, you two. Knock it off.”

*

After they returned home, Sam showered, made a cup of herbal tea, and curled up on the porch swing.

The sun had dropped behind the peaks to the west so that it tinted only the upper most snowcaps of the eastern slopes a rich golden hue. A cool breeze flowed up the valley, which lay in deep shadows. Sam pulled the cuffs of her over-sized sweater down so that only her fingers protruded. Cradling the cup with her fingertips, she sipped the warm tea.

Her thoughts settled on their visit to Casa Grande and on Burt Eagan. Something about him bothered her. A vague uncomfortable feeling she couldn’t define.

He had been a gracious host and was handsome, successful, and definitely charming. Definitely intelligent. He was obviously attracted to Alyss and from the moony-eyed look that crept into Alyss’ face, the vibe seemed mutual.

Sam had always preferred the rugged, two-day growth type. The guy in jeans, work shirt, and a pick-up truck. Except for Nathan that is. Nathan was definitely GQ and like Burt very charming. But, if Nathan was anything, he was honest and caring. She didn’t get that same feeling from Burt.

Gazing up the valley, she saw two people running through the meadow toward her. As they drew closer, she recognized the Kendalls. Debbie led, Kurt ran on her heels, urging her forward. After last night’s lovemaking marathon, Sam was amazed they possessed the energy for jogging. They came up the drive, each glistening with sweat, drawing air in great gulps.

“Nice jog?” Sam asked.

Kurt, bent over, hands on his knees, raised one hand and sucked in several more breaths. “We weren’t jogging,” he gasped. “We were being chased.”

“By who?” Sam stood and glanced back toward the valley, searching the shadows for a pursuer. Her hand reflexively reached toward the small of her back for her gun, which of course wasn’t there.

“Don’t know,” he said, finally catching enough breath to stand up.

“Something big. And hairy,” Debbie said.

Sam noticed Debbie’s use of “something” and not “someone.” She also saw the tearstains on Debbie’s cheeks, her pale, drawn face, and the tremors that rippled through her body. The poor girl didn’t know what she was saying.

Sam stepped off the porch and walked to where the couple stood. She gently laid a hand on Debbie’s shoulder. “You OK?”

“No.” Debbie burst into tears. Kurt wrapped his arm around her. “It was awful,” she said.

Sam flashed on her encounter with Billy the day before. “A big man? With a beard?”

“This wasn’t a man,” Debbie said. “At first, we thought it was a bear.”

“Maybe it was,” Sam said.

“No,” Kurt added. “It moved upright. We startled it and it ran away. Hid in the trees. But, then it seemed to follow us.”

“I thought you said it chased you?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” Kurt said. “I don’t know. We took off and never looked back.” He sniffed back his own tears. “All I could think of was getting Debbie out of there.”

Debbie’s tears flowed again and she nuzzled into her husband’s chest. He stroked her hair.

“It’s OK, now,” he said.

“Where were you?”

“Up there.” Kurt pointed toward the slopes just east of the inn. “About half way to the tree line.”

That was near the area she had run into Billy. And she had initially thought he was a bear, too. She told them of her encounter.

“I don’t know,” Kurt said. “This thing moved with incredible speed and agility for its size. And it smelled bad.”

Sam recalled the odor that surrounded the man who ran over her in the alley outside Varney’s. “What kind of smell?”

“Awful,” Debbie said, wrinkling her nose. “Musty. Like a dirty animal cage. You know...at the zoo.”

Kurt nodded his agreement. “I hadn’t put it together like that, but that’s exactly what it smelled like.”

“And its breathing was all raspy,” Debbie said. She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Look at me. I’m crying like a baby.”

Kurt tightened his arm around her. “It’s OK. I was scared, too.”

“How close were you?” Sam asked.

“A hundred, hundred and fifty feet,” Kurt said. “Closer than I wanted to be.”

“And it remained hidden in the trees?”

Kurt nodded.

“So, you never got a good look at it.” Sam said.

“No,” Kurt said. “It stayed in the shadows like it didn’t want us to see it.”

Sam woke to the sound of voices and car doors clicking open and slamming closed outside her window. She stretched, her body stiff from yesterday’s horseback ride and her own restless night.

She had slept poorly, tossing and turning, dreaming of large hairy beasts. Beasts that possessed bear-like teeth and humanoid hands, that seemed to melt from sight into the forest’s deep shadows at will, only to reappear and pursue her once again. Like some animated Rorschach blotch. Every direction she ran led her into even more densely packed trees, which slapped against her skin, raising painful red welts, and clutched at her clothing, preventing her escape.

At least the Kendalls had slept through the night. She hadn’t heard a peep or a squeak or a moan from them.

Another car door slammed.

She rolled out of bed, walked to the window, pushed the curtain back, and looked out. Kurt hefted a suitcase into the trunk of their car.

The Kendalls were leaving? She was sure they had said they were staying until Wednesday.

Sam shimmied into her jeans, pulled on a tee shirt and her jogging shoes, and headed out the front door. Kurt and Debbie were standing by their car, talking with Alyss. They looked up.

“You guys heading out?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Debbie said, casting a glance at Kurt. “Off to Aspen.”

“I thought you were staying another day,” Sam said.

“We were.” Kurt offered a nervous smile. “But, we’re meeting some of our friends there this afternoon.” He looked at Alyss. “As I said, we’ll be happy to pay for the night.”

“No, you won’t,” Alyss said. “It’s your honeymoon. Go have fun with your friends.”

Sam stepped closer to the couple. “Does this have anything to do with what happened yesterday?”

Kurt started to shake his head, but Debbie spoke. “Yes. I’m sorry. I’m scared. This is my fault. I told Kurt I just couldn’t stay here any longer.”

“It’s OK,” Alyss said.

Sam gave her a sympathetic smile and then turned to Kurt. “Have you thought anymore about what you saw yesterday?” Sam said.

“Sure,” Kurt said.

“And?” Sam asked.

“We don’t think it was a bear. And it wasn’t a man. At least not any man we’ve ever seen.”

Debbie grabbed her husband’s hand and inched closer to him. He slipped an arm around her.

“You said the person or thing you saw walked upright. But, how?”

Kurt gave her a quizzical look.

“Did it walk completely upright or somewhat hunched over?”

Kurt glanced at Debbie and then back to Sam. “It didn’t drag its knuckles on the ground, if that’s what you mean.” He smiled. “But yeah, its shoulders were forward and its head seemed to hang low. Of course, we only saw its shadow. Never got a good look.”

“Shuffling?” Sam asked.

Kurt shook his head. “Not exactly. Kind of a broad, almost bow-legged walk. But, it didn’t lumber along. Seemed to move pretty fast when it wanted to.”

Debbie nodded in agreement and looked at Sam. “What do you think it was?”

Sam shrugged. She considered telling them about her alleyway encounter outside Varney’s, but decided not to add to their fears. “No clue.”