Mercy (42 page)

Romey took in Julie’s figure, clearly imagining what was to be revealed to him, reveling in it. The anticipation excited him, Julie could tell. She undid the buttons of her blouse and lowered the zipper of her black slacks. Romey kept his eyes on her the entire time, and it was obvious he found the experience arousing. He dangled the lab coat in front of Julie like some reward she had yet to earn. Julie struck a stolid expression as she stepped out of her pants and took off her blouse.

“Everything,” Romey said, eyeing Julie’s body with a wolfish grin.

Julie took off her bra and underwear, anger eclipsing any embarrassment. Once she stood naked before him, Romey handed Julie the lab coat, but pulled it away the second she reached for it.

“I may never have this view again,” Romey said.

Julie snatched the coat from Romey’s hands and did up the buttons as quickly as she could with her own hands shaking. Romey stashed Julie’s clothes in a gym bag and walked the bag out of his office.

“Leave that where it is,” Romey said to Ms. Bates. “And hold all my calls, cancel all my meetings for the day. I’ll be leaving after this.”

Julie crossed the room toward Romey and stopped halfway between the door and his desk. She circled so that her back was to the door and Romey’s to his desk. It gave her a quick exit, but there was another reason she took up the position. Roman would learn what it was soon enough.

Julie felt naked even though the lab coat covered most of her body. The chill on her legs was an unpleasant reminder of her vulnerability.

“So, then,” Romey said, motioning to the conference table. “Do we want to sit so you can tell me about this deal of yours?”

“I’m fine to stand,” Julie said. “The deal is I want my life and I don’t want anyone to come after me or Trevor. That’s the nonnegotiable.”

“Who said anyone would?”

“I could put you away for life with what I have on you.”

“Then do it, Julie. Put me away.”

“I don’t know how many Lincoln Cole types you may have employed.”

Romey set his hands on his hips. “I see.”

“Why did you do it, Roman?”

“Who said I did anything?”

“It was the money, right? You and your bottom line.”

“You’re making grand accusations now. I’m owning up to nothing.”

“Cetuximab doesn’t come cheap, but it must have been worth it, or you wouldn’t have done it. So tell me, Roman, how much was Sam going to cost you? How much did you save by killing him?”

“Killing him? You must be crazy.”

“How much? Tell me, or I’ll turn in the evidence and take my chances you can’t get to us from prison.”

“Money is not the point. Is it? You of all people should agree. The point, my dear, is that health care should be just that. Health. Care. At some point in time, we’ve turned it into sick care. We’ve gotten to a place where all we do is spend money to keep people alive. Our job as healers is to heal. Our job is not to simply perform more tests and provide more services on people who will very likely die anyway.

“You ask what does the death of a patient like Sam save me,” he said. “I ask you, what did it save him? Years of being treated like an experiment, of enduring the next grand hope, the next big promise for the possibility that one day he might get a taste of what a normal life is like again. What would those years have been to him? Isn’t it better to die quickly than to live in misery enduring test after test, treatment after treatment? Isn’t that the right you fought so hard for?”

“I fought for the patient’s right to choose,” Julie said. “Not for you to make the decision for him.”

“Maybe some patients need a push.”

“Just like some politicians.”

“We all have our motivators.”

“How much did it take to motivate William Colchester?”

“Excuse me?”

“My guess is the devoted dad was more devoted to his bank account than to justice. So I want to know how much it cost you to keep Donald Colchester in the ground.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do. When the recording surfaced, you probably felt a little anxious wondering what it might reveal. Lucky for you it picked up a fall guy. When the recording evidence got tossed, you scrambled to make the case against him stick. You knew the mother wouldn’t stop until she got some answers. She’d been fighting for her son from day one. The last thing you wanted was an investigation into Donald Colchester’s death, so you got Sherri Platt to turn on Brandon, and you or your goon planted the drugs in his apartment. But you couldn’t get to the judge who might have agreed to exhume the body. William Colchester had to do that for you. So tell me, what does it take to buy that kind of cooperation?”

The mention of Colchester’s name disturbed Romey. “He’s a small man.”

“I want to know how small.”

“Are you trying to figure out a sum for yourself?”

“I have no income, no hope of getting a job with Shirley Mitchell hanging over my head. So yes. What did you pay him? Because I think I’m worth more. With what I have on you, I’m confident you’ll agree.”

Roman gave this serious consideration. It was actually something Jordan had said that allowed Julie to piece it all together. “How did Cole know Sherri was going to come clean to you?” Somebody knew because they were eavesdropping on Julie’s conversations. And that somebody was Lincoln Cole, not William Colchester.

“Two hundred thousand,” Romey said.

“Two hundred grand to get William Colchester to bribe the judge?”

“Yes, that’s what I paid him and that’s what I’m willing to offer you.”

Julie broke into a smile. “Good,” she said.

The door to Romey’s office burst open and seven armed agents from the FBI stormed in with guns drawn. They ordered Romey to the ground and he cooperated without resistance. He was immediately handcuffed, brought to his feet, and read his rights.

“What are the charges?” Romey asked.

Julie took delight in the fear on his face.

“U.S. Code 201,” an agent from the FBI said. “Bribing a public official.”

“What is this? I never—” Romey said. “And don’t trust her. She’s been fired from White. She has reason to hurt me.”

Julie retrieved her cell phone from Roman’s desk and held it to his face.

“It might look like my phone’s turned off, but it’s not,” Julie said. “It’s running an app called TrueSpy and recording everything we just discussed. The Boston police weren’t so keen on my using it, so I went to the FBI. They told me they couldn’t get a warrant for murder because it wasn’t a federal crime, but turns out bribing a public official is a different story. Trust me, Romey, you’ll still go down for murder, you son of a bitch.”

Julie used the bathroom in Romey’s office to change back into her street clothes while her phone was bagged and tagged as evidence, and Romey got carted away in handcuffs.

The Boston police had given Julie the ultimatum to wear the wire or face arrest, so she played it the only way she could. She’d said yes to their deal, while secretly cutting a separate deal with the FBI to get Colchester. Roman was Julie’s real target, but she needed someone for the bait and switch. Dr. Gerald Coffey had served that need well.

Neither organization knew what the other was doing, so now the FBI had another job to do—make nice with Spence and Capshaw and get Lucy and Becca out of hot water. Julie had another job to do as well. Somehow Sam and the others were made alpha-gal allergic. But how? She knew someone who might have an answer—someone who knew a lot about bugs.

CHAPTER 53

Michelle Stevenson poured a little more wine into Julie’s glass. They were back in Michelle’s nicely appointed living room where a framed beetle hung on the wall near a picture of Michelle’s son, Andrew. Julie had gone to the home of Keith and Michelle to talk arachnids—specifically, the lone star tick. Julie’s theory was that somehow the tick saliva had been synthesized and then injected into the patients to turn them alpha-gal allergic.

Julie looked at the picture of Andrew with a renewed feeling of gratitude for her own life, for her many blessings, for Trevor, and a sense of peace she felt now that Lincoln Cole and Roman Janowski were no longer threats.

“Will they charge Roman with murder?” Michelle asked.

“The police are working on it,” Julie said. “That’s why I need your help. Roman certainly had access to the patients, and giving an injection of cetuximab isn’t so hard to do. What I can’t figure out is how he made them positive for the alpha-gal allergy.”

Keith, dressed comfortably in jeans and a navy polo, made a sound suggesting that he was at a loss as well.

“For such a small critter, the tick’s salivary glands are incredibly complex,” Keith said. “I mean, it’s really quite remarkable. It’s certainly a key to their evolutionary success. The bioactive component exhibits a range of pharmacological properties. I’m not sure how it would be synthesized, but I suppose it’s possible, or elements of it at least.”

Michelle said, “What was Romey’s motive in all this?”

“Well, he didn’t come right out and say it, but profit, I’m sure,” Julie said.

“How so?” Keith asked.

“Moving from fee-for-service to the accountable care model changed the profitability equation. The extra money an ACO can earn from Medicare kicks in only if the patient’s cost for care is lower than expected. What better way to control costs than get rid of the expensive patients? Hospitals’ revenues are up, but margins are down because of climbing expenses. A patient like Sam could cost up to a half million dollars, maybe more. Get rid of enough patients like him, put a stop to unnecessary tests and treatments, and it combines to make a big difference to the bottom line. We don’t know how many people Roman murdered, but to make it worth his while it had to be a lot.”

“Judging by the ones we know about, they had a lot of tests and treatments coming their way,” Michelle said, sipping her wine. “Though Very Much Alive would argue those were hardly unnecessary.”

“I agree,” Julie said. “But it was a point Roman made before the FBI came barging in to arrest him.”

“Oh, I would have loved to see the look on his face when that went down,” Keith said.

“You should have seen the looks on the faces of the Boston detectives,” Julie said. “They were none too pleased, and the FBI was gloating a bit, but they got Lucy and Becca out of trouble, thank goodness. I guess intra-agency competition is a normal thing. I’m just glad I was able to put Roman where he belongs.”

“And poor Dr. Coffey,” Michelle said. “What a scare. I’m surprised he didn’t have a coronary.”

“He’s a pompous ass with a heart of stone, so I’m not surprised at all,” Julie said. “He had nothing to do with this, but he earned his place in the operation.”

Keith stood, shaking his head in disbelief. “Crazy. Just crazy. Let’s break for dinner, and then afterward we’ll dive into the nuances of tick saliva,” he said. “I’ve got braised chicken with artichokes in the oven. I’d hate for a lengthy discussion about tiny blood-sucking arachnids to ruin our appetites.”

“I’ll help you get it ready,” Michelle said, rising from her chair.

Julie stood as well. “May I use the bathroom?”

“Of course, you know where it is. Down the hall next to the study.”

When Julie got out of the bathroom, she could hear Keith and Michelle having what sounded like a heated conversation. Marriage was hard, Julie knew, and she wandered into the study to give the couple some space to finish their disagreement. She scanned the bookshelves, noting many medical ethics texts, some novels, a few classics mixed with mysteries and thrillers. Keith had his own section for medical texts, but some remnants from his past life as a bug enthusiast lingered, including a large volume specifically on arachnids.

Julie took the book off the shelf and turned to the index, where she found an entry for the lone star tick. She opened to that page and a shiver tore through her body.

The page was marked up, highlighted, words scribbled in the margin. Several loose pages from a notebook were folded up inside. Julie flipped through other pages in the book, but only the entry for the lone star tick had any markings on it.

Taking care to be quiet, Julie unfolded the loose pages tucked inside. It took her a moment to understand what she was looking at. Gripped with a sudden terror, Julie put her hand to her mouth to silence her gasp.

The pages contained diagrams of what appeared to be a complex incubation system. There were instructions for light and food sources, specific details on moisture and temperature, along with diagrams of the life cycle of the lone star tick from egg to larva to nymph to adult. There was also an illustration of a very large cage and a crude rendering in pencil of rats in the cage.

Julie felt sick. She poked her head out of the study and could hear the tense conversation between Keith and Michelle continuing.

Keith … my God … it’s Keith
.

Julie’s heart went to her throat, her thoughts racing.

They hadn’t synthesized the saliva at all. He was using real live ticks to make the patients alpha-gal allergic. But how would he harvest them? From the rat cage he kept in the basement, that’s how.

She recalled snippets of what Michelle had said. “He has rats … a cage he keeps downstairs.” Didn’t she say something about Keith spending hours down there?

Julie walked silently down the hall. She could hear the discussion between Keith and Michelle a bit more clearly. She closed the bathroom door and left the light on inside, hoping it would look like she was still occupied if anyone came looking for her.

“Spare me how in touch with my feelings you are, Keith. You don’t get it and you don’t get me, and let’s stop pretending you do.”

The fight sounded familiar to Julie. It could have been a squabble she once had with Paul. It distracted Keith, though, and allowed Julie to descend the front stairs down to the lower level.

Just like the time she made her way through Sherri’s darkened home, Julie used her phone as a flashlight to go exploring. The basement was a multiroom design, with a bathroom to her right, and a room directly across from the bathroom that functioned as a wine cellar. One end of the hall had a door that probably opened to the garage. At the other end was a second closed door. It was this door Julie opened. She stepped into a utility room covered in drywall with linoleum for flooring.