Jeff Buick - Lethal Dose

The front-end offices of Twin Pines were modern and bright, the walls painted sage with ocher trim, the floors gleaming hardwood. Four maple desks with flatscreen monitors and dedicated laser printers dotted the office. Only one of the desks was occupied, and the young woman stopped typing on her keyboard as Jennifer entered.

“Good afternoon,” she said pleasantly. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to see Gordon Buchanan,” she replied, ready for the usual runaround when you ask to see the top dog. It didn’t happen.

“Let me find him for you,” she said, reaching for a two-way radio. “Mike?” she said, depressing the talk button. A voice came back over the air in a second or two. “Do you know where Gordon is?”

“At the planer.” The voice was clear and resonated through the almost empty room.

“Thanks, Mike,” she said, and set the radio back on the desk. “I’ll show you where the planer is, but I can’t take you personally. It’s Saturday and I’m the only admin staff in.” She rose from her desk and walked to a window overlooking the main mill. She pointed to one of the larger buildings. “Go in the north entrance and just ask someone. They’ll know where Gordon is. And here, you’ll need these.” She handed Jennifer a hard hat and a visitor’s pass.

Jennifer signed the guest book, thanked the woman, and headed across the lumber yard to the building the woman had singled out. When she had dressed in the morning, it was with a sawmill in mind, and she wore snug jeans, running shoes, and a button-up-the-front cotton shirt. The mill hands seemed to appreciate her choice, and most of them stopped what they were doing to watch her as she made her way between the pallets of trimmed lumber. She locked eyes with one of the men, and he smiled and tipped his hard hat. She returned the gesture, which elicited an even wider grin. She reached the planer building and entered, asking the first man she saw if he knew where Gordon Buchanan was.

“Sure,” he replied, giving her a quick glance, then focusing on her face. “He’s over here.”

She followed him through the building, which housed a series of large machines where raw lumber was being sliced into thinner strips. It was noisy inside the building, but not to the point of displeasure. The smell of wood sap and freshly cut timber was strong, and the fine sawdust floating in the air tickled the inside of her nostrils. She sneezed a couple of times, and the man leading the way said, “Bless you,” both times. They reached a machine that was quiet, the massive saw blades sitting idle. Her guide pointed at the ground under the machine.

“That’s Gordon,” he said, then turned and headed back to work.

A pair of legs stuck out from under the machine, blue jeans ending in cowboy boots. She was still staring at them when the owner slid out from under the machine, his eyes focused on hers. Buchanan had stripped off his shirt to loosen the saw blades so they could be removed and sharpened.

Jennifer took note of the man’s physical condition. His upper body was well developed and his waist was trim, abs showing. He smiled as he rocked himself into a sitting position, then up on his feet. He wiped his hand on a flannel rag and extended his hand.

“Gordon Buchanan,” he said. His voice was deep and strong and fit the environment perfectly.

“Jennifer Pearce.”

He slipped on a shirt that had been draped over one of the levers sticking up from the machine’s control panel, buttoned it, and tucked the tails into his jeans. “Now, Ms. Pearce, it’s not often I get visitors who look as good as you in a hard hat. What would you be doing at a sawmill in the middle of the Montana forest?”

“I wanted to speak with you, Mr. Buchanan.”

“Nobody calls me Mr. Buchanan. Gordon is fine.” He smiled.

“All right. I think we need to talk, Gordon.” She returned the smile, the thought dragging through her head that this was one very self-assured and quite handsome man.

“About what?” he asked, motioning toward a door leading to the afternoon sunshine.

She waited until they were outside to respond. She slipped off her hard hat and held it in her hand. “I work for Veritas Pharmaceutical.” The moment she uttered the words, she saw Buchanan’s face and eyes harden and his body language shift to the defensive.

His voice was different when he spoke, almost threatening. “Why are you here?” he asked, leaning on a tubular steel railing outside the planer building.

She faced him, the afternoon sun in her eyes. His face was in the shadows, but she could see his eyes, and they were focused on her, unblinking and cold. “I’ve been with Veritas for about three months now, in the Alzheimer’s research group. Actually, I head up the group. Kenga Bakcsi worked for me. She was my office administrator.”

Gordon was silent. He crossed his arms on his chest. “What does this have to do with me?”

“I was taking care of Kenga’s cat while she was on vacation. When I was feeding the cat, I thought of something that might be important to my research. I logged on to Kenga’s home computer and typed the information into a file. As I was signing off, I saw a file that contained restricted information-a file that if the brass at Veritas knew was on her computer would have gotten her fired. I glanced through it. And I found your name.”

“What was in the file?” Gordon asked.

This was the moment Jennifer had been dreading: the point at which she would either tell Gordon what she had seen or keep the data close to her chest. She had flown all day to get here, and she knew that his brother had died and she strongly suspected he was looking at Veritas for answers. The chances were good that Buchanan already knew what was in that file. She made her decision.

“The file contained both the formula and the process for manufacturing Triaxcion, an antibalding drug commonly prescribed to middle-aged men. A drug that had been prescribed to your late brother, Billy.”

“I’m still not sure how this interests me, Ms. Pearce.”

At least he was using her name. She pushed on. “A couple of days ago, I got some bad news. Kenga Bakcsi was killed while vacationing on a Caribbean island. I kind of put two and two together.”

“And what did you come up with?” Gordon asked.

“That you think Billy’s death is somehow tied to Veritas Pharmaceutical,” she said. He didn’t respond, and she continued. “Kenga couldn’t possibly have accessed that information on Triaxcion by accident. She had that formula on her computer for a reason. And your name. Why would she store the name of a sawmill owner from Montana inside a secure, stolen file? But when I read about your brother dying, I knew I had the connection.”

“That Triaxcion killed my brother.”

“Somehow, yes. At least, you think it did.”

“That’s very interesting, Ms. Pearce. And if any of this were true, what would happen? Why are you here?”

“Kenga’s dead, Mr. Buchanan. And I think her death may be suspicious.”

“So you’re concerned that someone in your company found out Kenga was stealing classified information for me and they had her killed.”

It sounded crazy when put that way, so matter-of-fact. “Yes, something like that.”

“So you’re accusing your own employer of killing its employees. That’s quite a serious accusation, Ms. Pearce.”

As much as she tried, she couldn’t read the man. She felt he was prodding her, knowing all along exactly what she was telling him but never opening the door, not even a crack. “I flew out from Richmond, Virginia, specifically to meet with you, Mr. Buchanan. That speaks to how serious I think this is.”

“All right, let’s assume some glimmer of all this is true. A dead woman on St. Lucia, my brother’s death tied to Triaxcion. What then? Where do we go from here?”