The Suicide Effect (17 page)

“No, but her next stop was kind of odd.”

Rudker raised an eyebrow.

“The building on the corner of 4th and High. Haven’t figured what it is yet.” Jimmy tossed back the rest of his beer. “The weird thing is, she went inside for a minute, then came out and sat in her truck to make a cell phone call. Then she went back inside for a minute, then came back out and left.”

Rudker puzzled over the sequence of events. “Maybe she borrowed the cell phone from someone inside?”

Jimmy gave him a surprised/impressed look. “Could be. After that she went home. Spent the afternoon in her garage.”

Rudker wondered why Sula would borrow a cell phone. She must have one of her own. The only thing that made sense was she didn’t want someone to see her name come up. Who would she make an anonymous call to? His greatest fear was that she had made a copy of the disk before he’d taken it back and maybe already sent it to the FDA. Without data, calling the agency would be a waste of her time. They heard from crackpots every day, people who thought pharmaceuticals were evil and blamed the agency for everything from constipation to global warming.

Had Sula contacted the media? He realized Jimmy was asking him something. “What did you say?”

“Should I stay on her for a few more days?”

“Yes. Let me have those notes.”

Jimmy ripped the top page off his notebook and pushed it across the table. Rudker scooped up the page and shoved it in his jacket pocket. He would run it through his shredder at home. Rudker took a long swallow of his beer, then stood to leave. “Tomorrow, same time.”

“See you then.” Jimmy made no move to leave.

“You’re going back out to her house, right?”

“I thought I’d eat first if that’s all right.”

Rudker was annoyed by the man’s sarcasm but didn’t let it show. “See you tomorrow.”

The rain was still pounding down when he stepped outside, so he decided not to go back to the office. Tara would be pleased to see him home before seven for a change. He backtracked the way he’d come, then headed up Timberline. The mortgage on his home was nearly $3,000 a month, but the location was empowering. Rudker liked being at the top.

He turned left on Meadow View and saw an unfamiliar blue Bronco in his driveway next to Tara’s Mercedes. Damn. He was in the mood for sex, not small talk with one of her charity ladies. He parked on the street because there wasn’t room in the driveway for all three vehicles.

Rudker hurried up the steps, entered the house, and stripped off his wet overcoat. He tossed the coat on the hall table and called out to his wife as he moved through the foyer into the living room. He was surprised to see it empty. Tara and her guest were not in the family room either. Rudker headed upstairs to their bedroom to change his shoes. Tara and her friend were probably in her office, planning some event.

As he reached the top of the stairs, his wife came out of their bedroom, followed by a man Rudker had never seen before. At first, the sight confused him. Who was he and why was he here? Had she called a repairman? Then the man’s young age and stunning looks hit him like chest blow. Dear God, this thirty-year-old Adonis was fucking his wife.

Rudker’s throat went dry and he couldn’t speak.

“Hi sweetie,” Tara gushed. “This is Doug. He’s a volunteer fundraiser for the food bank.”

Rudker swallowed, finding his voice. “Why were you in the bedroom?”

As his wife struggled to formulate a believable response, Rudker took it all in. Tara’s tousled hair and hard nipples pushing through her sweater, unrestrained by a bra. Doug’s flushed face and sockless ankles.

“We were looking for a list of donors that I’d made out earlier and–”

“Shut up!” Rudker’s heart valves pounded like a herd of thoroughbreds at the racetrack. His muscles tightened until he thought his chest would explode.

Doug stepped forward and started to speak. Rudker rushed him, knocking him to the ground. He landed with his knee in Doug’s crotch. The man cried out and Rudker silenced him with a fist to his mouth. The crunch of bone on bone was both painful and rewarding. Rudker pounded the pretty face again.

Behind him, Tara shrieked for him to stop. Rudker ignored her and hammered the guy again and again. He didn’t stop until his wife grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back. In a flurry of pain, he swung awkwardly at her, striking her softly in the thigh.

Behind him Doug jumped up and knocked Rudker on his ass. While he lay stunned for a moment, the coward bolted downstairs. Tara stood her ground, biting her lip. The front door slammed as Rudker got to his feet.

“Jesus, Karl. It’s not his fault. It’s mine. I’m sorry–”

He lashed out and slapped her mouth to stop the flow of words. Tara’s hands flew to her face, but she didn’t cry out. For a moment, they made eye contact and silently accused each other of a dozen wrongdoings, big and small. Tara conceded first and fled into the bedroom. Rudker slumped on the top step and put his head in his hands. He heard Tara opening and closing drawers, slamming them occasionally to express her anguish. She was packing to leave. He made no move to stop her.

After a few minutes, she dragged a suitcase by him as she pounded down the stairs, crying softly.

“Why?” he called out to her retreating back.

For a moment she kept going, then at the bottom of the steps she stopped and turned back.

“Because I’m lonely. Because you’re never here.” Her voice gained volume and her face twisted in anguish. “Because you’re not really here even when you’re home. Because I don’t want to move to Seattle.”

His wife spun around and stormed out the front door. For a second, he heard the rain beating on the front step, matching the fury of his heart. Rudker wished he hadn’t hit Tara; that one slap could cost him dearly. But damnit, she had betrayed him. Totally blindsided him. After several long minutes of waiting for his heart to stop pounding in his ears, he went downstairs and took two Ativan. He thought he might have missed his Zyprexa again that morning, so he took one of those too.

Blood seeped from his knuckles, so he stood at the kitchen sink and ran cold water on his swelling hand. Rudker vowed to get back on track, to stay in control of himself until his external problems were resolved. He knew he should fight for Tara. He could win her back with the right promises—and he would. But it would have to wait. He was juggling too many critical things right now, any of which could blow up on him. The land rezoning and expansion. The fraudulent accounting, which could surface and derail the merger. And that damn PR person’s obsession with the Nexapra trials.

Rudker shut off the water and retreated to his study. Sula was his greatest concern and containing her was his top priority. Her visit to the research clinic had unnerved him. He doubted if the girl had learned anything significant, but clearly she was not giving up. He wondered what it would take to intimidate her. The idea of assaulting her was certainly attractive. Punishing offenders could be quite satisfying, as he had just experienced. Yet an anonymous attack would be difficult to pull off, and Sula would probably send the police to him even if she didn’t actually see her assailant. He could not afford to be questioned. Not with his career on the line and with Warner so recently assaulted.

One the other hand, an accident might be just what Sula needed.

Chapter 22

The time Sula spent working on her sculpture was therapeutic. She’d managed to not think about her custody hearing, her unemployment, the theft charges against her, or the Nexapra trials for nearly two hours.

Of course, as soon as she put down the mig welder, she’d started brooding about all of it. Her custody lawyer still didn’t know she was unemployed, and Sula needed to make that dreaded call. She had decided not to tell Barbara about being arrested. The theft hearing was after the custody hearing, and no one involved in the custody dispute needed to know about it. The only thing she could do to improve her chances of winning custody was to find a job, one that paid more than unemployment. That might take a while. Unemployment in Oregon was over ten percent.

Recovering the DNA data seemed even more difficult. Paul hadn’t called yet to report how their Trojan horse was doing. On the positive side, she’d learned the last name of a third Nexapra suicide, but wasn’t sure what good it would do her.

She wanted to get out for a walk but it was too wet. She put on shorts and a Beyonce CD, then worked up a sweat dancing around the living room. Exercise was not a discipline with her. She did it only when she felt like it, and only as long as she enjoyed it.

Sula showered and changed into jeans. Unable to wait any longer, she called Paul. “Hey. How’s the hacking coming?”

“Hi. And I’m fine, thanks.”

“Good to hear. If you’re going to keep me in suspense about it, maybe I should drive over and pick up pizzas on the way.”

“Excellent idea. I have nothing here but a moldy tomato, a can of peaches, and some cat food.” Paul didn’t have a cat.

Sula didn’t take the bait. “See you in thirty.”

She called in two small pizzas from Papas—a Mt. Bachelor classic for her, with pesto, sausage, artichoke hearts, and wax banana peppers, and a Canadian bacon and pineapple for Paul. They had shared this meal a few times. The pizzas were ready when she arrived, and Sula put them on her UO/Visa card. Intuition told her she needed to keep what little cash she had on hand.

It stopped raining on the drive over. She heard her mother’s voice—a sweet, faint memory—calling it an omen for good things to happen during her visit with Paul. As much as she liked to keep her mother’s memory close, Sula rejected her spirituality. Gods and chants and superstitious hadn’t made her mother happy or kept her safe.

Paul opened the door as she got there and ushered her in with a string of exclamations about food and love. Sula took the boxes to the kitchen table, while Paul dug out a stack of napkins. They each devoured half a pizza before saying much.

“What’s happening with our Trojan horse?” Sula asked between napkin wipes.

Paul grinned, mouthful and all. “I have a password.”

“Hot damn. Do you know who the user is?” Sula pushed her pizza aside, too excited to eat now.

“Eric Sobotka.”

“He’s a scientist. He has access to the clinical trial database.”

“I know.” Paul was still grinning. “I’ve already been in there.”

Sula jumped up and went around the table to hug him. “What have you found?”

“Tons of stuff. But I don’t have any idea what I’m looking for, so that’s why I needed you here.”

“We’re looking for anything we can find about Miguel and Luis Rios. I should have given you the names.”

“You probably did.” Paul shrugged. “Let me eat one more piece of this heavenly pie, then we’ll get right on it.”

After forty minutes of searching, the names did not come up.

“Rudker deleted the files. I knew he would.” Sula slumped into a chair. She’d been pacing Paul’s living room for the last thirty minutes, checking over his shoulder on occasion. “Warner must have expected him to do that, which was why she made the disk. And I lost it.”

Paul turned to her. “You didn’t lose it. The bastard had you arrested, then broke into your home while you were in jail and stole it from you. Who would have seen that coming?”

“Certainly not me.”

“What now?” Paul did not give up easily either.

“You’re not going to believe this, but I’m thinking of going to Puerto Rico.”

“Get out.” Paul’s mouth fell open. “You don’t fly.”

Sula hadn’t let herself think about that part of it. “I have to get that data. A woman in Portland also committed suicide while taking Nexapra during a clinical trail. She was only twenty-eight. Her last name was James, but the clinician said she looked Hispanic.”

“Jesus. Clearly not a good drug for Latinos.” Paul shook his head. “Can you do it? Get on a plane and fly across an ocean?”

“I hope so. Maybe with enough Xanax in me.”

“Can you afford the ticket?”

“No, but I have a credit card.”

Paul leaned forward and grabbed her hands. “I have a free flight from years of building up credit card points. It’s good for anywhere on US soil. I’ll get you a ticket with it.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Of course you can. It’s not a gift; it’s a loan. Without any interest. You’ll pay me back whenever you can.”

Sula was overwhelmed by his generosity. She tried to refuse again, but he ignored her and turned back to his computer. In a few minutes, the Chase credit card site came up and Paul found the number to call for cashing in his travel points. While he was on hold, he asked, “When do you want to go?”

Sula’s pulse quickened. It was happening so fast. “Soon, I guess.” If she waited, Rudker would have an opportunity to destroy the original files in Puerto Rico. What if he had ordered someone to do it already?

“Wednesday?” Paul was waiting for an answer.

“I don’t have a passport.”

“You don’t need one. It’s a U.S. territory.”

The only thing she had planned for the next few days was more job searching. “Okay.”

Great Gods. Sula could not believe she had just agreed to get on a plane and fly 1,500 miles. She’d never done this before and didn’t know how to prepare. Her pulse escalated.

“When do you want to come back?”

How long would it take? She planned to visit the research center and maybe the families. “Two days,” she finally said. Was that reasonable? She couldn’t afford to be gone longer than that.

“Which airport?”

“I don’t know. The research clinic is in San Juan.”

As Paul talked his way through the ticket purchase, Sula paced the room and tried not to hyperventilate. She could to this. Thousands of people got on planes every day and so could she. She had never left Oregon before. Did they speak English in Puerto Rico? she wondered. She would get online as soon as she got home and find out everything she could.

When Paul got off the phone, he printed out her itinerary while simultaneously reciting it to her. “You’ll catch a flight at 5:45 in the morning and fly to Phoenix. From there, you’ll fly to Orlando, Florida, then on to San Juan, arriving at 9:36 p.m., San Juan time. Three flights and twelve hours of travel. Quite an ordeal for your virgin flight.”