Shadow of Eden (16 page)

Steve now recalled the conversation with him in that dark X-ray room two seasons ago. He had asked Steve to review an unusual MRI on a young woman with a strange illness. Steve had listened carefully and suggested the same list of diagnoses he was now considering for Shirley. He remembered a disappointed colleague thanking him as he pulled the films off the view box. Steve had been of no help.

With a sick feeling in his stomach, Steve read the last days of Rhonda’s hospitalization in the steady hand of Dr. Goldstein, and of her death, still screaming in terror of her bees to the last. It was as if he were gazing into a crystal ball showing Shirley’s fate, or stepping into the future and reading her chart after her life had played out. And as Rhonda had slipped away, Steve saw the path Shirley was to take, frustrated that there was not a damn thing so far he could do about it. He closed the massive volume at last and left it on the counter to be filed away in the dusty chart mausoleum.

During his chart review, Steve learned something else about Rhonda. She had been on Eden.

Chapter 32

“E
tta,” Steve said walking into his office the next morning, “Does this name mean anything to you?” He handed his nurse an index card stamped with the hospital plate bearing Shirley’s name and date of birth.

Etta had been Steve’s office nurse for the last six years and knew his patients as well or better than he did. Not uncommonly patients would just drop by to chat with her and bring her a box of Arizona citrus or a pie and it was usually pecan since Etta was not shy about dropping hints. In her early sixties, she had been an office nurse forever, changing doctors as they retired before moving on to the next.

She fixed Steve with her motherly frown. “You look like you’ve been out all night.”

That triggered a yawn. “On call,” he lied. The beeper had been quiet last night, but he had spent much of it in front of his computer doing research.

“You’d better take better care of yourself if you expect to see that son of yours grow up.” Etta took the card and looked at it for a minute. “Maybe. Let me check.”

She walked over to her counter and sat down at the keyboard. A moment later she looked up, “Okay, I thought so. Rosenwell. She was in the Trident 108 protocol. Four years ago.”

Steve smacked his fist into his palm. “That’s it.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Just a long shot,” he said, walking into his office. He shut the door behind him.

Inside, he collapsed into his chair to think. He had enrolled her in one of their clinical trials for obesity, which was studying Eden before it had been approved. He had been the first to give Eden to her and she had probably been on it ever since. He had lost track of her at the end of the trial, but she probably had gotten a prescription as soon as it was FDA cleared.

Did that actually mean anything? Eden had been on the market for two years. If there were a time delay from exposure to onset, it would more likely develop in patients who had been in clinical trials, getting the drug several years before everyone else did. Was he, then, responsible for Shirley’s illness?

But it still didn’t add up. Drug companies were obligated to report any problems with their drug following its FDA approval. If there were a rash of cases, it would have shown up and the news would be out.

Besides, Captain Palmer wasn’t on Eden.

Chapter 33

P
aul Tobias told Ronnie and Samuel their bedtime story, kissed their cheeks as he tucked them in and turned out the lights. Ronnie, younger than Sam by a year, was four and by habit, went to sleep in Sam’s bed. Mary, their mother, would later carry him to his room. She rocked in a chair where she had listened to Paul’s story, stroking their cat curled up in her lap. He leaned over to kiss her, too. The trauma of their daughter’s recent death constantly colored each moment with their two boys—now all the more treasured and precious.

“I’ll be in the study.”

“Don’t be too long.”

He kissed the top of her head on the way out. In the study, Paul took the unusual step of closing his door and then dialed Ari Brown. “Listen,” he began after the pleasantries, “I wanted to ask you more about your encephalitis case. How’s she doing?”

“She’s probably going to pass tonight. What do you want to know?”

“I’m really sorry. I just wanted to see if I could help you in any way although I’ve gotten rusty since I joined industry.”

“You mean the dark side?” Brown’s tone was only half joking.

Paul forced a laugh even though it was a common term for those who left academic medicine and entered the pharmaceutical business. Before joining Trident, Paul had been a faculty endocrinologist at the University of Florida. “So, tell me what all you did to diagnose her.”

Ari described the testing, consultations and Medline research he had done—all to no avail. The thing that stood out in Ari’s mind, however, was an unusual MRI scan unlike any he had seen before. He described a pair of bright white streaks or bands that began in the frontal area extending into other brain areas. Paul already knew what it showed even before his friend’s depiction.

It was the same pattern he had seen in Trident’s lab animals during Eden’s testing phase. Paul knew that Ari’s patient almost certainly had the brain disease that his company had hoped to avoid. “Why did you call and ask about Eden?”

“Just a long shot. I heard about another very similar case here about four or five months ago and I compared their MRIs. They were almost identical. Since that guy had also been on Eden—I don’t know. I was just fishing for something. It really hit the family pretty hard. She’s a mom and everything.”

“I’m sorry, Ari.” Paul said distantly. “I’m sorry for your patient. You did a really complete work-up. I don’t think I can offer anything you haven’t already done.” Before his friend could reply, he hung up.

Paul, sick at heart, slid down in his chair, his hands shaking. What had they done? Up until now it had all been abstract, almost a game of handicapping the chance of a human developing the disease all in exchange for the coveted wealth Morloch had promised. While they had discussed the theoretical risk of a human case, to actually hear about a real one brought home the reality in a way Paul had never anticipated. Although he had steeled himself for some acceptable losses in exchange for the great benefits Eden brought, when confronted by the actuality, he found he had no stomach for it. Sara’s death had completely reversed the equation.

He clearly remembered that day when the report of the mouse study had come back from their contract lab showing serious brain abnormalities. He and Oscar Perera had read and re-read the report that indicated almost twelve percent of the animals had developed the abnormality. That finding would kill the drug Morloch had personally recruited them to develop. They confronted the unexpected prospect that their hopes and dreams of making a difference would vanish and all their rich stock options would become worthless. What would he tell Mary, then pregnant with Samuel and living in a ratty apartment? That he had left a promising academic career and joined a company with its only drug a bust?

They had met with Morloch to tell him about the report. He absolutely refused to believe the results. “Repeat them and if they’re still positive, find out why. And if you find out why, find a reason to keep moving forward. We’re going to make this the miracle drug we know it to be.”

Paul remembered that speech as if it were a movie playing in front of him. Seeing the conviction burn in Morloch’s eyes gave him hope that this was only a setback and not the end.

“Remember when you first came here?” Morloch had asked. “We were going to change the world. We were going to make an impact on people’s lives rarely seen in the last thirty years—remember? Have you forgotten that Eden is nothing short of a miracle? We will, together, keep Eden moving forward.”

Morloch’s unyielding and indomitable will carried the moment. “I have invested millions in this company and I will not give it up. I picked you both because you were the best in your field and if anybody can find a way for us to keep going it will be because of your skill and ability—or we will have wasted years of our lives chasing a fucking dream. If you are as stubborn and bullheaded as I am, and I think you are, you’ll find a way to pull us through this. Are you with me?”

Paul had looked at Oscar. His face showed he had hope again, too.

“Are you with me?” Morloch then fixed both his scientists with his gaze in turn until they nodded. Morloch never mentioned the money, but he didn’t have to. Everything they did—everything—was tinged by the allure of the great wealth that was to reward their success. Morloch had just given them back their worth and hope of more riches to come.

At the time when he nodded, Paul never considered where things would go and—as he now knew—how badly he had erred. The money had seriously compromised his judgment—he knew that now especially with a mother’s illness and death on his conscience.

He walked back into Sam’s room and found his wife asleep in the rocking chair and Ronnie still in Sam’s bed, all oblivious to the world. He looked at his family, thinking how fragile life was and how precious. He let his thoughts morbidly turn to the suffering the sick woman’s family must be going through, sitting by the bedside waiting for their mother and wife to die knowing there was nothing they could do. Paul found his cheeks wet. Sara’s death was so fresh, barely six months behind them. She had been so innocent and full of joy before she got the neuroblastoma. It was all over in four months and his life—their lives—had changed forever.

Paul had to do something. Just what, he was not sure, but he had to stop the poison. He went back into the study to think.

Chapter 34

S
teve finished his afternoon rounds where he had started them, back in the ICU looking over Shirley’s latest lab tests. Jeanne plopped down beside him in a chipper mood. “Three more hours and I’m off for four days.”

“Sounds great,” Steve said, not looking up.

“So, anything new?” Jeanne asked.

“Not much.”

“You didn’t like my Eden suggestion?”

Steve shrugged and glanced over at her. “It was a good suggestion. I just can’t make it fit if for no other reason than the Captain isn’t taking it.”

A flash of recollection crossed Jeanne’s face. “Oh, that’s what I was going to tell you yesterday. I just remembered.”

“What?”

“I caught my sixteen year old daughter using a friend’s Eden inhaler the other day. Now I know it’s safe and all, especially since you tell me it is, but I got into it with her about using someone else’s medicine. She got all mad at me and everything and told me she’d been doing it for several months now and that was the only way she could lose weight—”

Steve stared at her. “Maybe that’s it!”

Jeannie looked puzzled. “What’s it?”

“I’m not sure yet. Excuse me.” Steve pulled out his cell phone and looked up Dr. Walker’s number.

“Marty,” Steve said when Dr. Walker answered, “Was the Captain taking Eden?”

“Eden? No. Why?”

“I’ve got another case.”