The RX Factor (24 page)

A tall, graceful woman opened the door. Upon recognizing him, she collapsed into Ryan's arms. "Oh Ryan, Dave's gone. He's gone."

Ryan murmured into her hair, "I know, Mandy. I know and I'm so damned sorry."

When Mandy finally realized that Ryan wasn't alone, she did her best to pull herself together. "Come on in. I didn't mean to leave you on the porch."

As they entered the quiet house, Mandy said, "The kids are at my mother's. I'm bad for them right now. I can't look at them without seeing Dave and breaking down."

"I understand." Ryan noticed Mandy casting glances at Jordan. "This is Jordan Carver. Jordan, this is Mandy Butters. We've been friends since college."

Mandy sniffed. "Yeah, we were the four musketeers in those days." She stopped to run her eyes over the room. Family photos—including one of Dave tossing their youngest son into the air— were lined up along the mantle. Her eyes lingered a moment before she finally said, "Sit down. Would you like some coffee?"

"Only if you let me help you fix it," Jordan said. Mandy smiled and the two women disappeared into the kitchen. Ryan sat down and tried to relax but the photos beckoned him. He got up and walked over to the mantle and looked at a photo of him and Cindy with Eric and Dave sitting on a picnic table at Eno River State Park. A sudden chill came over him and Ryan felt his heart freefall. By the time Mandy reappeared with a tray of coffee, he was in a funk.

The tray shook in her hands as she set it down on the table, splashing coffee into the saucers. "I'm sorry," she said.

"No worries," Jordan responded. "Let me do that for you."

Ryan joined Mandy who was now sitting on the couch and put his arm around her shoulder as Jordan served the coffee and then sat in the chair opposite them. Ryan wished he was there only to console Mandy, but he had some questions. "Did Dave mention anything about a UPS package?"

"He did say something about a package you were sending him. What was in it?"

"It contained something important, a new drug to test. But the package seems to have gone missing. I'm sorry to have to ask, but could you tell me what happened before the crash? Did Dave mention my call or the package to anyone? Did you notice anything suspicious?"

Mandy reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Her eyes were still watery. "Dave was so excited to get your call on Saturday. We talked about getting together when you came up. He said your package was going to arrive from Mexico on President's Day, so he was going to go to the office on Monday to pick it up. Later that day he called me after his round of golf. He said he was going to have a couple of beers with his golf partners and then head on home. That's the last time I heard from him." Her voice wavered. "Ryan, they say it may not have been an accident." Anguish twisted her face. "I don't understand why anyone would do anything to harm Dave. He was such a good man. He didn't make enemies. I just don't understand."

Ryan pulled her close to him as Mandy took several deep breaths.
She's a strong woman. Dave was a lucky man to have had her.

Glancing at his watch, Ryan saw it was nearing five o'clock. He excused himself to make a call. Moving to a nearby room, he phoned the receptionist at Kalliburton Labs. "When I was there earlier today, I forgot to ask you something. Do you know the name of the UPS driver who services your office?"

Her reply was immediate. "There are two."

"Okay. I need the one who delivers on the weekends."

"Oh, he's a real Don Juan." Ryan could hear the hint of laughter in her sweet Southern voice. "His name's Mike, Mike Sperry."

"Do you know how to get in touch with him?"

"He wishes, but no."

Ryan had to smile at that one. "Thanks anyway, and have a nice day."

Ryan and Jordan checked into a motel in Chapel Hill, paying cash and giving a phony name, then got busy on the telephone. They called all seven Michael Sperrys in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill-area phone book. The first five either weren't home or were not a match, but with the sixth call, they knew they had the right one.

"Who is this?" Mrs. Sperry snarled.

Jordan happened to make the call, and the response from the Lothario's wife was nothing short of hostile. "My name is Dr. Jordan Carver, ma'am. I'm looking for Mike Sperry to check on a package delivery."

"Oh, that's rich," Mrs. Sperry spat back. "I thought I'd heard it all."

"Ma'am?"

"I wish the bum was home so I could watch his face when he talks to you. Doctor! Ha!" she fumed.

"Ma'am, I've never met your husband. I can properly identify myself to you in person. All I'm interested in is a package that your husband delivered. It's vital, and evidently it didn't show up at its destination."

The woman's voice took on a more conciliatory tone. "So, you don't know my husband?"

"No, ma'am. All I'm interested in is the package. It's critical that we track it down. The contents are very important to the healthcare field. Can you help me?"

"I'd like to, but I don't know when he's coming home. He has the day off tomorrow. Can you call back in the morning?"

"How about I just drop by the house tomorrow morning?"

"That's fine with me. The earlier the better. I'm sure he'll sleep all day otherwise."

Jordan took down the Sperrys' address and hung up.

Ryan and Jordan had a late dinner at a Chinese restaurant. As they sat waiting for the check, Ryan had a thought. "One thing is obvious about the package."

Jordan's eyes widened. "Go on."

"It's this delivery guy. The lab has no record of receiving a package and UPS has a delivery confirmation signed by Dave. This guy is either in cahoots with the bad guys or he's been paid off."

She considered this for a moment. "From the descriptions of him given by the receptionist and confirmed by his wife, he doesn't seem like a sterling character."

Still frustrated after reminiscing over the day, Ryan flicked on the TV in search of news about their case. The TV roared to life in the middle of a loud commercial touting the benefits of "a single pill, taken once a day. . . ." Ryan stabbed at the remote control, searching wildly before finding the mute button, but not before Jordan stirred to life. He looked over at her, embarrassed. "Sorry about that."

Curling up again, she muttered, "Come to bed. We've got a long day tomorrow."

He pulled the covers over her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be right there," he said. "Go back to sleep." He knew that sleep would not come easily for him that night.

After Wiley and the senator had left, Stedman
dismissed his assistant, and he and Craven were alone at one end of the table.

Craven found himself on the receiving end of a steely gaze from Stedman.

"The senator's insistence that he handle Carver puts us in a difficult position," Stedman said. "Dr. Carver knows too much."

"I agree," Craven said. "That's why I hired our friends in South Africa to finish the job. They've already left Johannesburg and should be touching down early tomorrow."

"You what?"

"It's time to bring in the heavy artillery. The senator is blowing smoke. He obviously has someone inside our operation—someone who's keeping tabs on our progress. But if he had any real clout, he would have stopped us by now. Besides, we can't sit back and assume that some federal agency with a three-letter abbreviation is investigating Carver's clinic in Mexico. And even if this is in the works, it will be a long road before they can make a case against her. She'll be off to Mexico in no time and outside of U.S. jurisdiction. Hope is not a strategy. She and Matthews are a clear threat. Hell, while we were trying to find them up here, they were breaking into our clinic in Mexico. We've taken them too lightly, and it's time to stack the deck in our favor."

"Let's set aside for the moment the issue of whether or not I agree with you," Stedman said after a long pause. "My question is, why didn't you consult me first?"

Craven let the question hang in the air. "Because I thought I was hired for my independent thinking and my expertise in this field. Am I wrong?"

Stedman jumped on the question. "There is an enormous difference between
thinking
independently and
acting
independently. This sort of decision can't be made without my consent, much less without my knowledge."

Undeterred, Craven tried to strengthen his case. "Matthews is ex-Bureau, and it's probable that he has the Feds on our trail."

"What about the senator?" Stedman countered. "He has now made his wishes known. I fail to see how deliberately going against him strengthens our position."

Craven bit his tongue. He had already considered all of Stedman's misgivings and had worked his way through them with ease. Now he had to wait for his boss to catch up. "Think about it, sir. The damage is already done. We've already got a body count that made the headlines. If all of this was an unforgivable act, the senator wouldn't be issuing toothless warnings. If he were going to go against us, he would've already done so."

"Be that as it may, he has now drawn a line in the sand. I don't relish the prospect of crossing it."

"But what other choice do we have?" As Craven asked the question, he saw a flash of recognition on Stedman's face. Yes, they were in a bind. Yes, killing Dr. Carver would quite likely put their relationship with the senator in jeopardy. But the alternative—to let her and Matthews keep digging until they found enough evidence to bury them all—was unthinkable.

"Fine," his boss said, his jaw clenched. "We'll call her death
unavoidable."

"Collateral damage," Craven said, "when we take out Matthews."

"That's right," Stedman said, bristling at the interruption. "After we eliminate the doctor, we'll pump a few million dollars into the good senator's campaign coffers. I can't see him getting too ruffled if the problem is eliminated, even if it is not done exactly as he had planned."

As they were about to adjourn, Craven's cell phone began to vibrate. Lifting the phone from his coat pocket, he looked at Stedman. "This may be important, I should take it." After getting the nod from Stedman, Craven answered.

It was Sulari. "It's done. I put him to sleep with a hot shot of dope. But I had problems. Two cops busted in while I was getting away. I had to handle them."

Craven suddenly wished Sulari were in the same room—and within strangling distance. He paused a moment to compose himself. "Dead?"

"As doornails."

"Are we in trouble?" The question was a deliberate fake-out. There was little danger of anyone tracing Sulari's miscues back to FSW. But the thug had just signed his own death warrant. He, too, would have to be erased. He had been put in charge of dousing a small brush fire, but instead had set the forest—in this case the Chicago P.D.— ablaze.

"I doubt it. The kid's dead in his room from an OD. The two cops went down a couple of blocks away, both shot. There's no tie in between the two. Depending on how many visitors the kid has, they probably won't find him for a week. Nobody will notice a foul smell in the hellhole he was living in. And nobody saw me except a couple of druggies who couldn't ID their own mothers."

"I see." Craven's tone was inscrutable.

"Listen, I'm gonna lay low for a few months just to be safe. You know how the Chicago cops are about their own. You'd think the president had been assassinated. But I need more green since the job involved more than I was contracted for. There'll be a lot of heat, and I need the extra dough to make myself scarce."

Craven, his hand over the phone's mouthpiece, waited a moment before getting back on. "Okay, but it's too risky to send a wire right now. I'll bring the cash. Where are you?"

"No way. I know about your 'no loose ends' policy. The money goes into my offshore account as agreed, or else."

"Or else what?"

"I rat you out. I know how to do it without messing things up for myself. In fact, I've done it before. My advice to you when dealing with the Outfit is to pay up. It'll be much cheaper in the long run."

Craven sensed a challenge. He liked challenges, because he always came out on top. "Why are you taking this attitude?"

"Because I can smell a weasel a mile away. I knew I was taking a chance with a suit like you. That's why I demanded a wire transfer to begin with."

"I'm going to need more time to do this wire transfer."

"Bullshit," Sulari grumbled. "Don't stall me."

Craven enjoyed letting Sulari dig himself a hole. But as amusing as Sulari's tough-guy act was, Craven knew he had to be careful. Keeping his patience, he calmly responded, "Look, give me forty-eight hours, that's all."

"And that's all you'll get. If it's not there, I do my thing and you hotshots go down, big time."

"I said I'd get it to you within forty-eight hours, and I will."

The line went dead, and Craven stared at his phone for a second before slipping it back into his pocket. He turned to Stedman, who had no doubt sensed the seriousness of the call. "We have another problem."

It had been three weeks since Ryan first met
Jordan at Rosey's. Since the death of Jordan's aunt and uncle, someone had orchestrated multiple attempts on their lives. In the past two weeks Ryan and Jordan had flown from the Bahamas to Chicago; and from there, after a six-day stay in the hospital courtesy of an assassin's car bomb, to Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Afterwards, they had taken off to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, then traveled by car to the New Hope Cancer Alternatives Clinic in Punta de Mita, as well as to Jordan's clinic a few miles down the road in Sayulita, Mexico, before returning to Puerto Vallarta, escaping back to Raleigh-Durham via Mexico City.

After all they had been through, they still had no idea who was trying to kill them. All of their leads had been extinguished except one. Their remaining lead was thin at best, but since it was all they had left, they decided to follow it through as soon as they had readied themselves for the day.

A half-hour later, Ryan and Jordan were at the UPS driver's house. It was a rundown bungalow in North Durham in bad need of a fresh coat of paint and a day of yard work. Mike Sperry answered the door in droopy boxer shorts and a wrinkled T-shirt.