Sarah Woods Mystery Series (Volume 6) (17 page)

Michael nodded, finished his cigarette in less than a minute, and stubbed it out in the palm of his hand. He lay back on the bed, hands clasped over his abdomen like a corpse, and closed his eyes.

Back in our own room, I kicked off my shoes and flipped through the take-out menus. I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. “Do you think Michael will stay in his room till morning?”

“I don't know. He probably hasn't slept on a bed for months, so maybe he'll want to stay.”

“What are we gonna do with him tomorrow?”

Carter’s eyelids were getting heavy, and I could see how exhausted he was. He stripped off his clothes and climbed under the blankets. “I need to sleep on it. I’ll figure out a plan.”

Chapter 12

T
he next morning, I woke up at the sound of Carter’s voice. He was getting dressed. “I’m heading next door to check on Michael. Be right back.”

I sat up in bed and checked the time. 7:15am.

“Hold up a minute. I’m going with you.” I stepped into jeans, threw on my sweater, and worked my feet into my shoes. I didn’t bother to check my face in the mirror, just covered my head with a baseball cap.

Entering the hallway, we knocked on Michael's door and waited for a reply.

“Maybe he's in the bathroom,” I said.

Since Carter had the key, he opened the door an inch and peered inside. “He's not in bed, and his clothes are gone.”

We stepped into the room, and I called out toward the bathroom, “Michael? You in there?”

No reply came and, upon checking the bathroom, Carter let out a groan. “Shit. He's gone.”

“Maybe he got hungry and went to the soup kitchen for breakfast.”

Carter shook his head in exasperation. “Let me check the GPS on his phone. He must be wearing the jacket because it’s not here in the room.”

He let out a sigh of relief after he confirmed Michael’s whereabouts. “Looks like he's still in the building. He's probably downstairs in the lobby looking for coffee or food. Let's head down there.”

Down in the lobby, we couldn't find Michael anywhere, so we approached the employee at the front desk.  “Did you see a guy with a green jacket leave? He was here just a few seconds ago.”

The man nodded. “Yeah, he just walked outside. I saw him get into a blue car.”

“What kind of car?”

“I don't know, exactly. I just saw the back passenger door open, and he got inside.”

“Was he forced into the car?” Carter asked.

“I don't think so. He got in all by himself. If I thought there was trouble, I would've called the police.”

“Which way were they headed?”

The man jabbed a thumb to the right. “Heading east.”

“Thanks.” Carter turned to me. “Let's go. With the stop lights, we might be able to catch up to them.”

“Are you serious?”

“There's only one reason I can think of where Michael would willingly get into a vehicle.”

“With somebody he trusts implicitly,” I said.

“Exactly.”

Running out of the motel entrance, we scanned the line of cars stopped at the red light. Carter motioned for me to keep up as he took off at a fast jog. “Do you see the blue sedan with tinted windows? Second car in line from the intersection.”

I craned my neck to get a better view. “Yeah. I see it.”

“Get the license plate number if you can. I'm going after it.”

Carter continued to run toward the vehicle. Once he got there, he grabbed the door handle and yanked on it, but it must've been locked. He started banging on the window just as the light turned green. Before the car could take off, Carter quickly got himself in front of the vehicle, palms on the hood, staring into the windshield. I couldn't hear what he was shouting over the horns of the impatient drivers behind them.

The blue sedan inched forward as if threatening to run Carter over, but he refused to budge.

Once I caught up, I was able to snap off a few pictures of the license plate with my cell phone. I couldn't see inside the car with the dark tinted windows. I tried the back passenger door handle to no avail.

At this point, a major traffic jam began to form behind us and angry drivers were either trying to get around us, or getting out of their cars to find out what the hold-up was.

Finally, the driver of the blue sedan punched the gas, plowing right into Carter. I heard myself scream as Carter's torso smashed into the windshield and he flipped up and over the car, landing hard on the cement.

I screamed his name as I ran over to help, praying to the heavens that he hadn't cracked his skull.

I needn't have worried!

Carter got to his feet and shook himself off. “I'm fine, Sarah. I might be limping for a few days but I'm fine.”

I wrapped my arms around him. “What the hell were you trying to do?”

A man from the sidewalk ran up to us and said, “Hey man, want me to call the police or an ambulance?”

Carter kindly waved him away. “Thanks buddy. We're good.”

Back on the sidewalk, Carter took a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Did you see who was driving?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yep, it was Logan Taylor. Michael was in the back seat with his sister.”

I gasped. “What?”

“Rachel Manning is alive. I saw her. She probably feared that Michael was going to tell us her secret. Do me a favor and get the Buick, then pick me up.” He handed me the car keys. “Quickly.”

I jogged over to the parking lot, my heart racing. I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that Carter had seen Rachel in the back of the blue car.

Had his eyes deceived him?

I got in the Buick, exited the lot, and circled the block to find Carter waiting for me in front of the Motel.

He got in, staring at his phone. “Okay, the GPS is still moving, so we have to hurry and catch up before someone realizes that Michael is being tracked.”

I punched the gas, white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Just tell me where to go.”

Following Carter’s commands, we ended up on I-84 heading east and remained there for about thirty miles. Since this wasn’t a breezy highway with passing lanes, there was no hope of catching up to the blue sedan. “Where the heck are they going?”

“Just stay on track,” he said. “The GPS is still in motion, about a mile ahead of us.”

A troubling thought occurred to me. Why would Rachel abduct her brother? Although it wasn’t really abduction if he willingly got into the car with her. “They could’ve found the phone in his pocket and thrown it into a moving dump truck, or something. We may be on a wild goose-chase.”

“I don’t think so.”

A few minutes later, Carter had me take a right on Hungerford Street, and we continued on that road until we hit what appeared to be a dead end. No houses around. “What now?”

Carter said, “There should be a road on the left here. It looks overgrown with weeds. Take it anyway.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Look.” He pointed to the tire tracks leading into the road. “They went in there.”

“This could be an ambush,” I said, but I did as Carter instructed and turned the Buick into the road. The hidden road was basically a dirt path filled with potholes, tree branches scraping against the side of the car. I prayed we wouldn’t get a flat tire or a cracked windshield in all this mess.

Suddenly, we came into a clearing and a lake appeared, with a half-dozen dilapidated cabins. “Looks like a campground,” he said.

“Do you see the blue sedan anywhere?”

Carter was too busy opening the glove box. After he retrieved his gun, he said, “Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want them to see the car. The GPS says they are less than two hundred feet away so I’m going in on foot.”

I stopped the car, cut the engine and looked around outside, spotting the blue sedan. “Over there, six cabins down. That must be where Rachel’s been hiding out, that is, if it’s really her.”

“Oh, it is,” he said. “I’m positive of that, and she knows I recognized her in the car.”

When Carter got out, he slipped the gun into the waist of his jeans, under his shirt and proceeded toward the cabins. “Stay here.”

“Like hell I will.” I exited the Buick and fell in line behind him. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. “Maybe a better idea would be to call the police and give them this location. We could tell them Michael has been abducted.”

Carter charged up to the cabin and rapped on the door. “Come on,” he shouted out. “We know you’re in there. We just want to have a chat.” He banged again. “If you don’t let us in, we’re calling the cops. I don’t think you want that. So open up.”

After a long thirty seconds, the door slowly opened. Logan’s face appeared. “How did you find us?”

“There’s a phone in Michael’s jacket with a tracking device.”

Logan shook his head, upset with himself. “Nice move.”

“Is Rachel and Michael inside?” Carter asked. “And don’t insult my intelligence by saying that Rachel is dead.”

Taking a deep breath, Logan massaged the bridge of his nose, clearly agitated. “What are you packing?”

Carter showed him the pistol tucked into his jeans. “I’d rather not use it. It’s your choice, though.”

Logan opened the door wider to let us in. “Looks to me like I don’t have much of a choice.”

Upon entering the cabin, Carter and I both turned to see Michael sitting with his sister on a couch, holding hands. Michael looked terrified, and Rachel was stroking his arm gently trying to soothe him.

“The jig is up,” Carter said. “An innocent man is in prison for a murder that never happened. Why?”

Rachel’s eyes were wide with fear as she looked to Logan, as if begging him to explain.

Logan said, “We know it’s not fair about Andrew. The case was never supposed to go to trial. If his lawyer had done his job, he’d be a free man.”

“Well, that's one thing we can agree on.” Carter said, taking three long steps toward Rachel. “Why did you fake your own death? I want to hear it from you.”

She just sat there, eyes blinking at Carter as if she’d lost her tongue. Finally, she said, “It’s... a long story.”

“We have the time.”

Logan spoke up, as if trying to protect Rachel. “Look, if she hadn’t faked her death, she would’ve been murdered. It was the only way to keep her safe. It was my idea, and I’ll take full responsibility for the repercussions when the time comes.”

“Who is this person you’re hiding from, exactly?” I asked, inserting myself into the conversation. “who is this person who was going to murder you.”

Rachel and Logan exchanged a glance and she nodded. Logan pulled up two flimsy wicker chairs for us to sit. “Assuming you’ve already looked into me, you know my work has mostly been focused on Big Pharma, trying to expose the ways they manipulate the system for their own gain. I have been stymied at every turn Big Pharma is too powerful to allow one man to stand in its way. But I’m not so easily deterred.”

“Get to the point,” Carter said.

“The point is, Rachel and her colleagues had developed a groundbreaking therapy that could literally wipe out the need for mind-numbing prescription drugs. Maybe not for every patient, but for a vast majority of them. If that were to become a globally recognized cure for depression, Big Pharma would lose billions of dollars in profits.”

Carter shook his head, astonished. “So you convinced Rachel to fake her own death, so Big Pharma’s hitmen would what? Pack it in and call it a day? Don’t you think someone would figure it out eventually? You didn’t plan on hiding out in the woods forever, did you?”

“All we needed was some time to get the proof.”

“Well?” Carter said, palms up. “What proof have you got?”

Logan reached across the table for a file folder and handed it to him. “As it turns out, I may have been wrong about Big Pharma, at least in this case. However, there is Roger Shefke.”

“Yeah,” Carter said. “We met him yesterday. What about him?”

“Shefke is a rich man, but he didn’t get that way by selling his publishing business. His investment portfolio is thicker than an encyclopedia. His biggest investment to date, with over three million dollars in, is a Big Pharma giant called Mercer Quaid. And guess what? Mercer Quaid is the top producer of anti-psychotic drugs on the market. If that stock were to dip just half a percent, Mr. Shefke would stand to lose big.”

“So what?” Carter said. “If Shefke is so loaded, why would he care if he lost a few million? There’s more where that came from. The guy probably makes half a mil a year just on interest alone.”

“Shefke is the one who approached Rachel about doing her project when he got wind of the research. He wanted to have control, so he could eventually squash the whole thing. He realized that the only sure way to make this go away, was to eliminate the people behind the research. Then he could do whatever the hell he wanted.”

Carter turned to look at me as if wondering what I thought about all this. I had to admit, Logan had presented a compelling case. “Why would Shefke risk going to jail?”

“Because he knows he’ll never see the inside of a jail cell. He’s too rich. He’s too connected. He thinks he’s infallible.”

“Let’s assume you’re right about Shefke,” I said. “What physical proof do you have that he caused Dr. Spealman’s heart attack? Or caused Dr. Linzer to crash his car into a ditch?”

“That’s the problem,” Logan said. “We have no physical proof. Not yet. However, I have reason to believe that Shefke is planning another murder.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Dr. Boyle. He’s the loose end that needs to be tied up. Even though, technically he left the group early on, he still helped develop the therapy. He’s still using it in his private practice.”