L Sellers - The Suicide Effect

Images of Warner jogging along the river and being attacked by a crazed man swarmed in her head as she drove back to Prolabs. The tranquilizer kicked in about the time she reached the parking lot and she was able to focus her thoughts. Although she felt entitled to take the afternoon off, this was her best opportunity to search Warner’s office and she was more determined than ever to do it. Warner’s work was too important to let it die with her. Too many lives were at stake.

Rudker’s first meeting Thursday morning didn’t wrap up until nearly ten a.m., and his jaws tensed with irritability. JB’s marketing people had been unprepared to discuss Nexapra’s market position, so they had talked about other products with little growth potential. What a colossal waste of time.

With a growing sense of urgency to get back to Prolabs, he called JB’s head of R amp;D and left him a brief message, canceling their 10:30 meeting. Without notifying anyone that he was leaving, he took a cab to his hotel and asked the driver to wait. Fifteen minutes later, he was back in the taxi, overnight bag in hand. He hoped to make an afternoon flight and be at Prolabs before Peterson and the others went home for the day.

Unlike the quiet of his arrival, SeaTac airport was a swarm of people mid-day. Rudker aggressively cut through the crowds with barely an “excuse me.” He needed to be first on the standby list.

This time he was pulled out for a personal search. “Remove your socks, please.” The giant lesbian looked like a prison warden.

“Why the socks?” Rudker made no attempt to be pleasant.

“It’s part of the process, sir. Please just do it.”

God damn, he hated showing his feet in public. His toenails were hideous. “This is ridiculous.”

Rudker pulled off his socks, then stood still while the bitch ran her wand up between his legs and over his shoulders. He barely contained his urge to kidney punch her.

The fat bitch behind the table took her time too, probing into every pocket and pouch of his bag. He had nothing to hide, but the invasion of privacy galled him anyway.

“Do you have a prescription for this medicine?” The toad spoke loudly and held out his Zyprexa.

“Of course.”

“May I see it?”

“You’re looking at it. Read the label. That’s my name.”

“May I see your ID?”

“I just showed it to you.”

“Show it to me again.”

They were fucking with him. It was clear to anyone. Rudker could hear the air whistling in and out of his nose. He pulled out his driver’s license again and held it up to her.

“Let go of it, please.”

The taste of blood filled his mouth as he bit down on the inside of his cheek. He reminded himself of what was important. Nexapra’s development. The merger. His career. He let her have the license.

She looked at it closely, comparing the spelling of his name with that on the prescription. He wanted to smash her face. After a long minute she handed it back. “Have a nice flight.”

“Unlikely.” Rudker grabbed his bag and bolted before they could humiliate him further.

After a twenty-minute delay on the tarmac, his flight was short and uneventful. Halfway through it, he realized he’d forgotten to take his medication that morning. He pulled his bag down from the overhead compartment, dug out his meds, and popped one. He landed in Eugene just after four, grabbed a cab and headed for Prolabs.

Sula entered the R amp;D building and walked briskly toward Warner’s office. Her plan was to be bold, so that no one would question her. If they did, she’d say the police had asked her to look in the office for family contact information. She had planned to do the search right after lunch, but the HR director had called Sula up to her office and spent an hour going over a list of things she wanted done immediately. Sula had completed most of them, while getting up every five minutes to look out the window to see if Marcy’s Scion had left the parking lot.

Once she was in the R amp;D building, her heart hammered with anxiety. Sula unlocked Warner’s door, stepped into the office, and closed it behind her. Her watch said 4:11.

The tall windows and incredible view caught her attention, but she did not allow herself to gaze out on the lush green hillside. She sat at Warner’s desk and pulled open the top drawers. The neatness was stunning. Right away she spotted a small collection of keys in a special little holder.

The second one she tried opened the drawers of the large, main filing cabinet. Sula riffled quickly through the folders, all labeled with phrases like cellular response to tumor necrosis factor. She wasn’t sure what she expected to find, but simple concepts like Nexapra or Nexapra’s Clinical Trials would have been helpful. She opened and searched the second drawer. It was also full of specific-science labels.

Sula checked her watch: 4:18.

In the third and fourth drawers there were folders with drug names, but most were products already on the market. Shit. Sula wanted to get into Warner’s computer, but that was risky and possibly pointless. Without an access code to the R amp;D database, she likely wouldn’t find much. She opened the smaller filing cabinet.

There it was. A foot-thick Nexapra section, with folder after folder.

The reams of paper almost overwhelmed her. She could spend days looking through this stuff and still not find exactly what she needed. She checked her watch: 4:23. She had eight minutes left. She had promised herself she would be in and out in twenty minutes.

Sula frantically flipped through the files, looking for key words such as suicide or genetic response. The first half of the stack appeared to be about the preclinical development with many references to mice and rats. The second half looked more like a collection of personal notes and observations. She spotted a section with references to patients.

Sula pulled out a handful and rushed to the copier in the corner. She shoved the papers into the auto loader, and while they copied, went to the large desk drawers and began to search. If Warner’s genetic discovery was recent, perhaps her notes about it were kept in an active file around her desk. Sula checked her watch: 4:28. She decided to give herself a little more time.

Rudker had called a cab from the plane, so he only had to wait a few minutes in front of the airport. The dark green sedan pulled up and an elderly man with a Bin Laden beard got out to greet him. Rudker said “Prolabs” and hopped into the back seat. His butt made contact with something small and flat on the back of the seat. Rudker reached behind him and found a driver’s license belonging to Richard Morgenstern. The first thing he noticed was that the man shared his basic characteristics: late forties, blondish-gray, and wide jaw. Impulsively, he pocketed the license. It would come in handy for visiting some of Seattle’s private clubs while remaining anonymous.

Just knowing he could pretend to be someone else gave him a warm sexy vibe. He was already eager to use the ID. It made him impatient with the driver, who took his time jotting down information.

“It’s on Willow Creek Road,” he offered, hoping to get rolling.

“I know where it is.”

Of course he did. Prolabs was the biggest business in Eugene. It had started out twenty years ago as a little company that made drug discovery equipment. Then the founder, who had a talent for raising venture capital, had developed his own high-throughput screening lab. A couple of early hits, which the company had held onto instead of licensing out, had launched its drug making business. Rudker had been recruited to lead the company six years ago when the founder retired. Most days, it seemed like a good career move. Now he looked forward to the day that flying into Eugene meant only a quick trip to check on the factories.