L Sellers - The Suicide Effect

She had to sit down. Her body and brain were both exhausted. She told herself to let it go, that it was over, she had done all she could do. She had to stop thinking about Nexapra and focus on finding a job. Focus on her custody hearing and her chance to get her sweet little boy back into her life. Once she was past that she would move, so Rudker wouldn’t know where she lived. She crumpled the list of things to do and tossed it in the trash.

If only Calix were here, she thought, sitting on the other side of the table, leaning forward eagerly to hear the rest of this sorry tale. Her sister would laugh in the right places without making Sula feel stupid. She would tell her she had done the right thing and everything would work out fine with Tate. Sula knew she would never have another friend like her big sister. It seemed she was destined to spend her life alone, talking to herself, and making lists of things to do. She felt the cold fingers of the abyss latch on, ready to pull her in.

Time for a distraction.

She tried to read her book about freelancing, then remembered she hadn’t taken her Celexa this morning because she’d been in jail. Sula went to the kitchen and swallowed one of her tablets, then went back to her computer and logged onto CompuServe. The New Mail icon was lit up in bright yellow. She clicked it and her Inbox appeared. Paul had responded to her e-mail about opening and copying a big file. It was unusual for him to be home on a Saturday night, but if he was home, it was not unusual for him to be online. His draft was brief: No problem. Bring it to EFN Monday afternoon.-P

Sula decided to tell him everything. She couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. Paul was a good friend and would not judge her. They had met at the University of Oregon four years earlier in an economics class. They had been lone liberal voices in a sea of young Republicans and had shared an opposition to the trickle down theory of economics. They later bonded over coffee and their mutual orphan status. Paul had graduated with a political science degree the same term she finished with a BA in Journalism. In Eugene, his degree was about as worthless as an art history education, so he worked part time as a waiter and part time as a computer tech for Rent a Nerd.

Sula hit reply and began to type: Hi Paul. I no longer have the disk. It’s a long and bizarre story, but here’s the short version. I overheard Diane Warner (a scientist at Prolabs) tell Rudker (the CEO) that a drug they’re testing makes some people kill themselves. She said she could develop a screening test to prevent it. He told her to shut up and forget about it. Then he came out and saw me standing there, so he knew I heard.

Then Warner disappeared and eventually turned up dead (more on that later). I got worried that her discovery would disappear too and the drug would get approved and a lot of depressed people would kill themselves. (You know how I feel about that.) So I searched her office and found a hidden disk with the DNA data. Then Rudker saw me outside her office and had me fired and arrested (more on that later ).

This is the creepy part. While I was in jail, Rudker (or someone he hired) broke into my house and took the disk. So now I’m unemployed, facing criminal charges, likely to lose my custody hearing (which could send me over the edge), and have no way to help the people who will eventually take the drug.

I keep telling myself to forget about the drug, but I can’t. People will die. And Rudker doesn’t care. He just wants to make more money. It infuriates me, but I don’t know what to do now. Sorry to lay this on you, but it’s been a wild week, and I had to tell someone. Thanks for listening.- Sula.

She pressed Send, then used Google to search for the state’s employment website. She hoped to dig up more job opportunities and find out what she could about filing for unemployment.

There weren’t many jobs and none involved reporting, writing, or communications of any kind. Except one TV producer position, which, in the Salary section, said “guarantees minimum wage.” Great. She clicked through the site looking for filing info. Her cell phone rang, startling her. Timidly, Sula picked it up, half expecting it to be Rudker. “Hello.”

Paul’s voice shrieked at her. “Why didn’t you call me? This is the wildest story I’ve ever heard. It’s so unlike you and yet, so like you. I want details. Start at the beginning. Where did you hear the first conversation?”

Sula recounted the events of the past six days, with a dozen interruptions from Paul, who kept repeating in a stunned voice what she had just told him.

“You went to the morgue and looked at a dead body?”

“You ran from your boss and he chased you?”

“You spent a night in jail?”

Paul’s hysteria made her downplay her reaction to it all, but she had, in fact, taken more Xanax in the past week than in the past six months.

“Unless he has the judge in his pocket, those charges will be dismissed.” Paul sounded sure of himself, even over the phone.

“I hope so. Fortunately, my court date is a week after my custody hearing.”

“Does your lawyer know about any of this?”

“Not yet. I plan to tell her though.”

“Sula, you did the right thing. Don’t doubt that. I wish I had your courage.” Paul sounded a little choked up, and it made her feel self-conscious.

“Hey, don’t get gushy on me. Bravery and stupidity are sometimes hard to tell apart. If I lose Tate over this, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Sula, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I don’t think you should get your hopes up about the hearing.”

She knew Paul felt that way, so she rarely discussed it with him, but now she felt defensive. “You don’t think anything I do now will make a difference?” She popped up and began to pace.

“I didn’t say that. But-”

She cut him off. “What do you think I should do about Prolabs?”

“You have to expose them. By the way, what was on the disk?”

“Patient records of the two guys in Puerto Rico who killed themselves and two other files I couldn’t open but that are labeled DNA.”

“Would those files still be in the company’s computer system?”

“I don’t know. Rudker probably destroyed everything he could find. Why do you ask?”

“I could get into the database.”

She had forgotten Paul was a reformed hacker. If there was such a thing. Being a hacker was a lot like being a gambler. People might stop doing it, but they never really got it out of their system.

“I can’t let you do that.” She chewed on her lower lip. “It’s too risky.”

“Not really. Hacking into the Defense Department’s system is risky. Prolabs’ IT people will never know I was there.”

“Really?” She felt a little surge of hope. “It would be worth a look.”

“Why don’t you come over and keep me company while I look at their system.”

“Sure. When?”

“Right now. It’ll be fun. I haven’t done any snooping in a long time.” Paul laughed. “Hey, before I got your e-mail, I was playing online chess with a smartass from Singapore. How boring is that for a Saturday night?”

“You’re one up on me. I’ll be over in twenty minutes.”

Still groggy from two sleepless nights in a row, she stopped for a diet Pepsi. She would need the caffeine to keep up with Paul’s energy. She crossed Ferry Street Bridge and drove out Martin Luther King Boulevard to a large apartment complex.

She shut off the truck and checked her watch: 9:33. A few years back, she’d gone through a phase of hating the habit but hadn’t been able to break it. Now it didn’t bother her. She took the stairs up to his unit two at a time. Paul greeted her with his usual big hug. Sometimes his affection made her uncomfortable; tonight it made her feel less alone in the world. She hugged him back with a good squeeze.